


An Interrupted Cry

by ThirdGenerationRockette



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, F/M, Mackenzie-centric, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:34:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1636703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirdGenerationRockette/pseuds/ThirdGenerationRockette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The first thing Mackenzie McHale does when she gets back to the US is to call Charlie Skinner. The second is to cut her hair.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nowhere, Everywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> I am no expert on PTSD at all that but I've done as much research as I could and sadly I'm very familiar with anxiety, depression, medication, therapy (oh, the therapy), so I hope I've done the subject at least some justice. I am so inspired by so many writers in this fandom, seriously, especially [simplyprologue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyprologue/pseuds/simplyprologue) whose work is just sublime, and I'm happy to even be dipping my toes in the same pool as them.
> 
> Anyhoo...this started as a one-shot and grew a bit...right now I think it's going to be four chapters but who the heck knows, really. Big thanks to [time_converges ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/time_converges/pseuds/time_converges)for reining in my comma abuse.
> 
> The title comes from Robert Frost's poem [Acquainted with the Night](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/acquainted-with-the-night/) which is beautiful, frankly.

The first thing Mackenzie McHale does when she gets back to the US is to call Charlie Skinner. The second is to cut her hair.

She has never been wedded to a particular style or length, even as a teenager when her friends were experimenting with highlights, dyeing their hair purple or crying over drastic new cuts gone wrong, she was fine with her straight brown hair. If it was long enough to scrape into some kind of ponytail but not so long that it became difficult to manage, that was fine with Mackenzie.

Brian had hated her hair long ("You're not a fucking teenager, Mac, don't you think it's about time you cut it?") so she kept it that way, as a silent fuck you, a small but determined attempt at control in a relationship where she so often felt she had none. Then along came Will, so different from Brian, in all the ways that mattered. He loved her long hair, complimented her on it, twirled it unconsciously around his fingers when they were lying in bed, even blow dried it for her when she dislocated her elbow and couldn't lift her arm high enough. She once mooted the idea of cutting it and Will had said she would look beautiful no matter what length her hair. God, she loved him for that, for being kind and supportive and the complete opposite of Brian. She still can't understand why the things that drew her to him were also the very things that scared her, made her feel like she wasn't good enough, and worst of all; sent her running back to Brian's bed.

She sits down in the salon and flicks through some gossip rag or other they've given her to read while she waits but she's not paying attention; two years out of commission and she hardly knows who any of these people are. All she can think about is that tomorrow she's flying to Chicago because she needs to see Will, needs to know how seeing him again makes her feel before she can give Charlie an answer about the job. Somewhere in her mind, she's decided that showing up still looking like _his_ Mackenzie wouldn't be fair, maybe if she cuts her hair, she'll feel different, braver; perhaps a short, neat cut is what she needs to feel in control again. 

Two years embedded hasn't done her hair any favours either, she knows that, and she wishes that, along with the hair, she could cut away the bad dreams, the anxiety, the dull, ever-present ache she feels deep in her gut. It's been no time at all yet it seems like a lifetime ago, almost like it happened to someone else. She wonders if she'll ever be the same person she was before she left, but at the same time she isn't sure she wants to be. The Mackenzie of three years ago was an idiot, so freaked out by someone loving her completely, intensely and with no agenda, that she ruined it; broke his heart and her own before running away, as far and as fast as possible. At first she wasn't trying to punish herself, she was simply unable to stay in New York where everything reminded her of Will, of the two of them together.

She hadn't really expected that once she started running, she wouldn't be able to stop. She kept on through the bullets, the blood, the noise, the long dark nights, pushing herself as hard as she could, trying anything she could to forget what she left behind. She remembers the pain when she was stabbed, the complete agony as the blade tore into her, and the feeling as the blood drained slowly out of her. She recalls the taste of it in the back of her throat, followed by the sense of calm relief that maybe this was it, maybe this was the punishment she'd been subconsciously seeking all along.

She lost her nerve after the stabbing and she hates that more than anything else, hates how vulnerable she still feels at times, how angry it makes her; she has always prided herself on having nerves of steel and now they feel shredded. Crowds suddenly became impossible, noises that she couldn't immediately identify sent her into a spiral of sweating and shaking, yet she carried on, too tightly wound to sleep, too anxious to eat, desperately pretending she was fine until someone, she doesn't even remember who, finally sat her down and told her it was time she went home.

People keep telling her it's normal to feel like this after everything she's been though, that it will take time but she's still the same Mackenzie and she'll be fine. She wants to scream at them that she isn't the same Mackenzie and she never will be, that the new Mackenzie is brittle, angry and living permanently on the edge of panic. God knows she loves her father but when he tells her she's the strongest, bravest girl in the world, she knows he's just trying to make her feel better; she's his baby and he doesn't know how to cope with how much she's hurting. If she were brave or strong then she wouldn't have run in the first place, she would have stayed and fought for what she realised she wanted the very moment she lost it, the moment she threw it all away.

So here she is, back in the US, wondering if it's where she's meant to be or if she simply flew back to where she was before she embedded because she couldn't think of anywhere else to go. 

Mackenzie has never really had a clear definition of home. As a child, home was wherever her father's work took them; Washington DC, London, Paris, Nowhere, Everywhere. Cambridge marked the first time she felt like she belonged somewhere; suddenly she felt completely English, accepted as the same as everyone else, no longer the nomadic ambassador's daughter with the slightly peculiar accent. After Cambridge came Russia; two years in St Petersburg where she honed her perfect Russian, learnt to drink hard liquor and discovered what it meant to feel real, bone-aching cold, but once again felt like an outsider peeking in at a world that wasn't quite hers. 

Arriving in New York was like landing on another planet, it was fast-paced, exciting, noisy, exhausting; she felt like she had been shot from a cannon and she loved it. She thought she loved Brian too, for a while, even when it became clear he loved the perfect version of her that existed only in his head. She stayed despite never being able to please him because she didn't know what else to do, thought perhaps she wasn't trying hard enough. It was only when she crawled back to Brian one last time that she realised she was in love with Will and finally knew where her home was. Regret hits her once again like a tidal wave and the more it threatens to pull her under, the more determined she is to fight. She needs to find home again.

***

Mackenzie doesn't sleep well at the best of times so it's no surprise when she finds herself wide awake at 5am on the morning she's heading up to New York. She's so ready to be back in a newsroom, she wants to move on, to dull the memories she has from her time embedded, memories that keep her from sleeping and have sent her to a therapist for the first time in her life. More than anything, she's ready to see Will again, up close, not just from the crowd at Northwestern. She isn't worried about the job, she's happy to commit herself to News Night, she sees the potential and knows that she can harness Will's talent and use it to make a news show with integrity, one they will both be proud of. 

Her abilities as an EP don't worry her, she knows she's good at her job, it's her confidence in managing every other area of her life that feels terribly lacking; she needs to look into Will's eyes to know if there is a chance he might ever forgive her. If not, she needs to figure out how to box her feelings for him neatly away and concentrate on her work; she doesn't have Will and if she doesn't have her job either then she's terrified of where that leaves her.

Later that morning she finds herself waiting in the ACN newsroom and it's Don, her intern from so long ago who confirms what she suddenly realises; that until today Will had no idea she was coming back. It hits her like a ton of bricks and for a moment she's completely unable to breathe, so she plants herself in the nearest chair, puts on her best EP face and tells Don she'll just sit there and wait. Once again, she feels like a prize idiot and she can't help wondering why the hell she hadn't considered the possibility that Charlie had hired her without Will's knowledge. Had she really been stupid enough to think he would welcome her back with open arms? 

Briefly, she toys with the idea of picking up her luggage and running again but before she has chance to ponder on it any further, she's crossing the room and suddenly finds herself face to face with Will, giving him a tentative smile, along with silent thanks that he has no idea her heart feels like it's about to explode from her chest. He looks shellshocked and says nothing at first, and she swears she sees a hint of affection in his eyes but she blinks and it's gone, replaced by something she's unable to identify, a coldness she had never seen in him until the day he told her he never wanted to see her again.

As they head into Will's office, Mackenzie is vaguely aware that everyone in the newsroom is watching them while trying to pretend they're not, and she wonders just how obvious it is that she and Will were more than just anchor and EP. He is still angry, as she expected he would be, but she can't help the disappointment she feels when he says he didn't read her emails. When he hadn't answered any of her calls, she had poured her heart out in a string of emails, hoping that he would read them and see how sorry she was, how much she regretted hurting him.

At some point during the morning, Mackenzie finds herself in the bathroom, struggling to breathe properly; too fast, too shallow, she's hot, she's cold, she's clammy, she's shaking and then she's sitting on the floor, leaning back against the cold wall, taking steady breaths until she gradually feels herself calming down. Standing up on slightly wobbly legs, she runs her wrists under the cold water and takes a few more deep breaths until she finally feels almost normal again. She dries her hands and stares at herself in the mirror, tidying her hair and wondering when she started to look so tired, so...sad.

"Mackenzie Morgan McHale," she speaks aloud and is pleased to hear her voice sounding strong and clear, without a hint of the panic she was feeling mere minutes ago. "Everything's going to be alright, you'll see. You can do this, you know you can, so get the fuck out there and get on with it."


	2. Holding Back an Avalanche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sometimes it makes her sad to think that she went away to try and prove to herself how tough she was, to reinvent herself, to finally grow up, only to come back feeling so close to breaking point that some mornings she needs to give herself a pep talk just to get out the door._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely feedback on chapter one. It has given me fresh courage to post chapter two :)
> 
> Personal note: Mackenzie's Helena is my Helena, physical description and all. One of a small but vital group of people who quite literally saved my life.
> 
> As always, thank you to [time_converges ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/time_converges/pseuds/time_converges)for being one of that group and for preventing me from running amok with commas...

Six months after the unofficial relaunch of News Night 2.0, if anyone were to ask Mackenzie on a good day how things were going, she'd say pretty bloody well. The show is gradually shaping up to look like the one she and Will have been aiming for, they have a team she grows more proud of every day and sometimes Will can go hours without grumbling about ratings. Ask her on a bad day and there's a chance she will simply lay her head down on her desk, roll her eyes at such a stupid question and tell you to get the fuck out.

The summer was hard, she can admit that. Will embarked upon what she can only describe as a dating frenzy, every night a different woman, all young and beautiful; every night Mackenzie's heart sank a little lower, her smile growing sadder. She's started going to therapy regularly again, and her therapist tells her what she already knows; she can't control Will's behaviour but she can control her own reaction to it. He has every right to date whomever he likes and as often as he likes, Mac knows her right to an opinion on how he spends his evenings ended when she betrayed him, but knowing it doesn't make it hurt any less.

Things between her and Will are odd; strained on some days, comfortable on others. He's rarely out for drinks after work- too busy with his rotating door dating policy, clearly- but one night he follows her into the control room after the show and stands closer than he has in months. Mackenzie is confused and a little unnerved, shuddering involuntarily when he reaches out and wraps a lock of her hair around his finger. Just as she is about to ask him what the hell he's doing, why he's fucking with her like this, he asks her why she cut her hair, before she came back to New York, why did she cut her hair? She shakes her head at first, not sure why he's asking now, so many months after she came back, but he stays where he is, so close he almost has her backed against the wall, waiting for her to answer. Putting a hand on his chest and stepping around him to move away, she shrugs and says there was no particular reason, she just needed a change; he knows she's lying and she feels his eyes on her as she walks out, forcing herself not to look back.

Somewhere in September she finds herself on a date with Wade, who is pleasant enough company but not much more, if she's honest. Somehow one date turns into several, one month into two but it's not going anywhere, she feels nothing when she's with him; in fact, she feels nothing much of the time. She knows she's dating for all the wrong reasons; she's lonely and tired of the pain that courses through her as Will parades his love life in and out of the newsroom. Aware that she deliberately avoids introducing Wade to Will or even mentioning that she's seeing anyone, it happens accidentally one evening and she feels an unmistakable stab of guilt, like she's cheating on him all over again. 

Mackenzie's therapist is called Helena, she's tiny, blonde and poised, she makes Mac feel like an uncoordinated giraffe in comparison; she's good though, she's direct but kind, sympathetic but honest, and Mackenzie is very thankful for her. She pays her a small fucking fortune once a week and some weeks she doesn't even talk, she just picks angrily at her ragged fingernails or cries for an hour; absently, she thinks she could probably do the same thing with Sloan for the price of a martini. Although she thinks Helena may be better equipped for when the subject of the Middle East is raised, when Mac tells her how she wakes up some nights so certain she's still there that she can taste sand; so vividly that she staggers out of bed and vomits until she's exhausted and crying on the bathroom floor. 

She knows before Christmas she should break it off with Wade; her heart really isn't in it and her therapist reminds her that while things with Will are still unresolved, she should know that other relationships are going to be difficult to progress. It's more than she can deal with to think about turning up at the office New Years party alone while Will shows up with his latest date, although she knows it's not really a good reason to keep seeing someone she knows she has no future with. 

In the end, Wade proves himself to be an arse of the highest order and Mackenzie again feels like a fool. She should have known he was using her, because she was using him too, if for entirely different reasons. Jim tries to tell her she didn't deserve the way she was treated but she brushes him off; it was inevitable, she tells him, and she got exactly what she deserved.

Helena is the only one who knows when Mackenzie is truly struggling, how anxious she is at the end of each week, that she sleeps no more than a few hours a night if she's lucky; that she can't leave her apartment unless she has a Xanax supply in her bag. She has become an expert at hiding it at work, although Jim has a pretty good idea when things are going really badly. He spots it when she steps up a gear and he tries (but usually fails) to prevent her from taking on more and more because while the distraction works temporarily, ultimately it only adds to her anxiety. When it doesn't help at all, she gives thanks her office has a bathroom she can lock herself in and sit until the tears subside or the shake in her hands disappears. From time to time she sees a look in Charlie's eyes and she thinks he understands what she's going through; one veteran of war to another, of sorts.

Sometimes it makes her sad to think that she went away to try and prove to herself how tough she was, to reinvent herself, to finally grow up, only to come back feeling so close to breaking point that some mornings she needs to give herself a pep talk just to get out the door. 

The presence of Brian in the newsroom almost tips her completely over the edge; less him actually being there and more the fact that Will brought him in; of all the writers, she can't fathom why Will had to choose Brian. More than a year after she came back, when she thought they were getting somewhere and she had even started to hope he might have finished needing to punish her, suddenly it feels like they're right back where they started, and it hurts.

Coinciding with Charlie and Will overruling her on the Casey Anthony coverage, Mac feels like she's trying to hold back an avalanche with her little finger. Unsurprisingly, it isn't really working out too well. She implodes, she cries to Helena, she cries on the phone to her mother and she cries alone; there are dark days when she wonders if she will still be alone and crying twenty years from now. Even bleaker are the days when she can't bear to think of still existing in twenty years.

Brian hangs around the newsroom like an angry wasp, buzzing in and out of her space, needling her just like he used to, twisting the truth about everything; trying to drive her insane, she thinks. After a while, Mackenzie gets the sense that Will is regretting bringing him in but it's too late by then, the damage is done; her heart is breaking all over again, this time in excruciatingly slow motion and there are moments when she's not sure she can take it.

Mackenzie is strong but there is a limit to how much even she can hold inside, regardless of how stubbornly she tries or how much she throws herself into her work; eventually it spills out and implosion becomes explosion, in spectacular fashion. 

She gets drunk; blind, steaming drunk, spends most of the evening slumped in the corner of the bar before stumbling towards the door around midnight, yelling at Jim in the street when he stops her from going over to Will's apartment and takes her to her own instead. She wakes up the next morning fully clothed, mascara smudged across her pillow, her head pounding and her shoes placed neatly on the floor at the foot of her bed. Jim; sweet, kind Jim, who has seen her in far worse condition and is always on the periphery, ready to step in without judgement when she starts to spiral into another bout of despair. She wonders if he had even half a clue what he was signing up for when he agreed to accompany her to the Middle East and she wishes sometimes, for his sake, that he'd said no.

Mac texts him a simple thanks and tells him she'll be at work in time for the first rundown meeting, knowing she doesn't have to ask him to stall Will if he arrives first and questions her whereabouts. He replies almost instantly, 'No problem. I'm sure you are already but if not...please talk to someone', and Mac steps into a shower so hot it hurts, scrubs her skin until it's raw and cries until she can't cry anymore.

Mackenzie is about to watch Will interview a woman who is unbelievably eager to share details of her inappropriate tweets when she feels it starting to really slip away. Headset on, standing in the control room, the one place she usually feels safe and fully in command, she has to take several deep breaths before she can even finish telling the woman her name. She is overcome by the sudden urge to curl up and hide; from the show she is suddenly being forced to do in the name of ratings, from all the fresh hurt being churned up by Brian's presence and from the desperate, sad eyes looking back at her in the mirror. When fate intervenes by knocking the power out, plunging her world suddenly into darkness, Mackenzie breathes out for what feels like the first time in days.

Initially she stays calm, asking about generators, thinking about contingency plans, and then she feels it; her brain moving from calm into frantic, rapidly escalating into low level mania before she can stop it. In the darkness of the newsroom, she loses it, gains it back and loses it again, all in a matter of seconds. When the power flicks back on, she finds herself standing in the middle of the room, her voice becoming increasingly strained, her hair stuck to her forehead and sweat running slowly down her back. Will is standing opposite her and the worst thing about this disaster of a fucking week is the look on his face; it looks horribly like pity and Mackenzie wants to cry, her shoulders sagging suddenly under the heavy weight of her misery. She has learned to somehow cope with his anger, his cruelty but she is totally unprepared for his pity. Straightening, she runs a shaking hand through her hair, says something to Will about bombshells and looks down until he walks away.

However, if anyone thought her blackout reaction was bad, it is completely overshadowed by her outburst after the mock debate. Mackenzie finds herself goaded by Brian, then listening as Will admits he brought Brian in to punish her, before screaming at him in the middle of the newsroom, the entire team silent as she gets more and more worked up; closer to losing it than ever, knowing it's happening yet powerless to stop it. It's only later when she's calmer that she remembers Will saying he brought Brian in so she could make a side by side comparison. How can he possibly think she needs to compare them? After all this time, after everything he knows about Brian, she can't believe he doesn't see that she made her choice years ago; she's loved Will so long now that she can't remember why she loved Brian at all.

Mac talks to Helena about Will's admission and about her frustration that even after all this time he's still unwilling to forgive her, still deliberately hurting her when she's trying so hard to make things better. She admits she doesn't know what hurts more; standing beside Will as he continues to punish her, or the thought of being without him entirely. At the suggestion that she consider making the decision to walk away, to remove herself from a clearly painful situation, she asks Helena, her voice cracking, to please stop.

She finds herself walking home from Helena's office, trying to clear her head, but the city heat wraps around her like a heavy blanket and makes it harder to think, not easier. Two blocks from home, although she's barely aware of doing it, she takes off her shoes and walks the rest of the way barefoot. 

She tries to imagine walking away for good but she can't do it, right now she doesn't feel strong enough to go; she just hopes she's strong enough to stay.


	3. Treading Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _For a while, things start to get better, as they so often do before they get catastrophically worse._

Brian _fucking_ Brenner. 

Mackenzie wonders if anyone would notice if she had him killed. Discreetly, quietly, unceremoniously disposed of; she's fairly certain it would do the world a favour. Hell, someone would probably give her a medal.

She has just spent a week sitting beside Will's hospital bed, first waiting for him to wake up, her insides twisting themselves into a tangled knot of anxiety, then yelling at him through sheer terror at the thought that she could have lost him. She tells him she can't believe he's letting Brian's article get to him but she's not really surprised, she knows how insecure he is, how much he needs people to like him, craves approval. To the outside world, Will may appear gruff and supremely sure of himself but Mackenzie knows that a childhood filled with fear and pain has left his confidence sorely lacking. What she can't quite believe is that she feels closer to breaking point with each passing day yet he's the one overdosing on pills; she really doesn't know what game the universe is playing this time

When he tells her he's thinking about not coming back, Mackenzie's heart sinks and she flips instantly into survival mode, telling him he's coming back, no question, but she tells Charlie she's genuinely worried that he meant it. The thought that she may have come back, put up with his anger and taken his punishments only for him to end up being the one to bail out, is almost too ridiculous to comprehend. She drags poor Jim in to visit and she knows she's scaring him. She's grateful that he's somewhat equipped for her drinking, her tears, her anger but he really doesn't know quite what to do when she's flipping out like this; she can hear her own voice pitched higher than usual as she desperately tries to make conversation as if everything is fine and she knows he can see the fear in her eyes. 

Splitting her time between the hospital and the newsroom, she doesn't think about sleeping and she eats only when one of the staff puts something in front of her. She does everything she can to convince Will that the people who care know what he's truly like, know what they're doing with the show; the rest of them are fucking arseholes who don't matter. When it comes down to the wire though, it's the news itself that pulls him back; Dorothy Cooper is Will's unlikely saviour and when he gets out of bed, the light slowly creeping back into his eyes, Mac thinks everything might just be ok.

For a while, things start to get better, as they so often do before they get catastrophically worse. Mackenzie feels like she and Will are on the cusp of change, moving tentatively closer, although later she wonders how she could have been so very wrong. They talk more, they sit at the bar together looking on as the rest of the team enjoy themselves, and it's so comfortable, so familiar that occasionally Mac wonders what he would do if she threw caution to the wind and just kissed him. In the middle of a cryptic conversation about The Who, she essentially tells him she still loves him, and she's fine with that, it's a simple fact of life that the sun rises, the sun sets and Mackenzie McHale loves Will McAvoy. They talk on the phone, sometimes barely an hour after they said goodnight in person. During one call somewhere around 4am she tells him she's in regular therapy and he seems pleased, if a little surprised. 

Jim goes on the road because he needs to get away and although Mac hates letting him go, she more than anyone understands the need to run when you're hurting. She has no idea when she brings a DC producer up to cover that he will become the main component in her gradual unravelling. Will starts to withdraw again and she's confused because she had thought things were getting better. He stops calling at night, he replies to her texts with short, abrupt messages; she spends hours with Helena telling her she has no idea what she could have done wrong this time, only to be asked why she always thinks she must be to blame for any change in Will's behaviour. Mac has no answer to that.

If Mackenzie thought Will's summer dating spree was hurtful, it's nothing in comparison to how she feels when she finds out he's dating Nina Howard; a revelation that comes accidentally, from Sloan of all people, who assumed she knew. In her mind, if he's willing to date Nina Howard, gossip columnist, a woman who stands for everything Will despises, then there must be something real there, she must be different from all the others. Mackenzie spends far too many long nights lying awake, torturing herself with the thought of the Tiffany ring making the move from Will's drawer to Nina's finger. She finds herself wondering where she might go when it happens because she sure as hell won't stay in New York and watch as Will and Nina become AWM's power couple. She thinks maybe the DC office will take her, perhaps CNN (she could get used to Atlanta again despite the damn heat); if not, she can always go back to London.

Helena talks about Mac's tendency towards all or nothing thinking, asking her what evidence she has to suggest Will and Nina's relationship is anything more than just dating. Her head tells her she has nothing to go on other than gut feeling and the blanket of desolation she feels envelop her when Will leaves the office every night. Her heart says he's going home to Nina and she's losing him for good.

And then something bigger than anything else happens; Genoa. 

It starts with a tip that Mackenzie thinks is too good to be true and she's wary of it at first, coming from a source she's unfamiliar with. She does all the right things, makes some calls and when the guys in DC tell her Dantana is a good guy, she pushes on and tries to let go of the unease she can’t seem to shake. After months of checking, cross-checking and checking again, News Night prepares to break the biggest story of her career, of all their careers. All of the morning show, focus group bullshit Will put himself through courtesy of Nina’s popularity drive won’t matter anymore; this will be the thing that redeems him, and their show, in the eyes of the American viewer.

They go on the air with it in a Sunday night special and it's smooth, professional, a perfect example of how to do the news, with Will at his absolute best. Within an hour, it has already started to unravel and it disintegrates so dramatically that the speed at which they scramble to start unpicking it is almost farcical.

Mac just about holds it together long enough to tell the staff, gathered in Will's office, that they need to retract the story, but when Will asks for the room and it's just the two of them, she slowly begins to fall apart. Vaguely she recalls him taking her by the shoulders and steering her into a chair, telling her to breathe, just breathe, and tell him what the fuck happened.

After the retraction, sleep evades Mackenzie completely, she barely eats, she's drinking too much and relying on pills to keep her steady enough to get through the day. She finds herself outside Will's place at 3am one Tuesday, sighing with relief when he buzzes her up, saying nothing as he pulls her towards him and lets her sob against his chest. Regaining some semblance of control, she tells him she's sorry, she's so sorry, repeating it over and over, wrapping her arms tightly around herself and shaking her head as he tries to tell her it isn't her fault. She leaves twenty minutes after she arrives, kicking herself for showing up in the first place, apologising again and biting back a fresh onslaught of tears as she leaves a confused Will standing in the doorway.

Three nights later Will yells at her to give herself a fucking break, reminding her that she was the only one who even thought to check the shot clock while everyone else was still trying to figure out what they missed. He tells her she has to quit taking responsibility for everything and she yells back that she will do nothing of the sort, before telling him she’s going to get drunk and he’s welcome to join her.

They sit in a quiet corner of the bar, drinking far too much scotch as the rest of the team stays clear, sensing that Will and Mackenzie need some time to process what’s happening, to deal with the unravelling of the world they created together with News Night 2.0. Mac catches Jim's eye and nods as he raises his eyebrows, asking silently if she's ok, ready to jump in if not, despite having seen enough of her fights with Will to know she's more than able to stand up for herself. He's also well aware that there are times, even after everything, when she just needs to be with Will.

Will gets drunk faster than she does which surprises her but does make her worry slightly that she may have built up more of a tolerance than she thought. She tries to apologise again, to convince him that if she resigned now they could lay full blame at her door; he could continue with the show, Charlie could continue to keep the 44th floor at bay, and the rest of the team could keep their jobs. Expecting him to get angry with her, she is caught completely off guard when he puts an arm around her shoulder and drops a fumbling kiss into her hair, sighing her name but saying nothing else. 

It’s late when Mackenzie is overwhelmed by a sudden sadness and she knows she needs to leave before she ends up sobbing against Will's chest again or saying something she knows she’ll regret. He grabs her hand as she stands up, and tells her he can’t do the show without her, _won't_ do it without her. She squeezes his fingers and somehow makes it into a cab before she starts to cry and doesn't even bother to try to stop the tears streaming down her face; it's Friday night and she figures the cab driver has seen far worse.

The weeks pass and at work she's calm, visibly at least, although beneath her professional façade, she’s desperately treading water, fighting to keep afloat while complete chaos rages all around her. Mackenzie is fairly certain that Will knows things are very different on the inside; even though she’s changed almost immeasurably over the last few years, he still knows her too well, can see into her very core like nobody else ever could, or ever will. She sees his concerned look when she stumbles over her words through sheer exhaustion, when she forgets facts she absolutely knows but can’t seem to recall, she sees his feigned nonchalance when he brings her lunch because he knows food isn’t really making her list of priorities. 

Mostly, he just stays close to her, a hand on the small of her back, a squeeze of her shoulder; not because he doubts her strength, more that he seems to feel it his duty to be ready to catch her if she falls. It makes her sad, nostalgic for a time when no matter what happened during the day, she could go home at night and lose herself in him, and he in her. She misses that, she misses him, more now than ever because they're closer again but she knows the very thing that has them edging closer is also what will tear them apart and she hates that it's her fault, just like before.

Throwing herself completely into figuring out where she went wrong, Mac spends hours going over pages of interview transcripts, making use of Will's law knowledge, demanding he tell her if her questions were leading, if she could have handled things differently, better. She tries again to apologise but he won't hear it, telling her he's as much to blame as she is, but she knows bullshit when she hears it, she knows this is all down to her. She can't quite believe she's ruined everything again; clearly smashing his heart into a million tiny pieces wasn't enough, she had to shit all over his career too.

Will's right when he says she needs to sleep, of course he is, if only it were that simple. She's moved beyond crying now too which she knows is not a good sign; she feels detached from her own misery, like she's watching someone else's downfall in agonising slow motion. She knows without doubt that her job is doomed, her entire career is quite probably over, but she quietly accepts it as rightful payback for her failings. It's too late to save herself so she focuses on everyone else, on trying to pull her team from the wreckage. Mackenzie's stubbornness will not allow her terrible judgement to ruin anyone other than her, not this time. She taught them all how to do the news and she is determined to make that her legacy. 

Helena says she's concerned about Mackenzie's detachment but Mac brushes it off, telling her she should be pleased she's finally stopped fucking crying. She also warns her about drinking too much while she’s still taking a fairly hefty dose of Zoloft and Mackenzie admits that drinking isn’t helping with her insomnia but it does block out her racing thoughts for a while. She’s more exhausted than she ever thought possible, and all the wine in the world couldn't change what's happened. She tells Helena that her career has been dealt a blow it can’t recover from, she knows it's too late to save herself but she's damned if she's going to take anyone else down with her.

What does a person do, Mackenzie wonders, if they’re no longer employable? She thinks maybe she’ll go back to London, Genoa will have been noticed by the news agencies there but the impact of it will be much less powerful than in the US. Hopefully her vast experience will count for more than her one mistake and if not- fuck, Mac hates to have to use it like this but her father’s name might swing things in her favour. She could settle in London again, she knows the city, she has friends there, or she used to; what she can’t think about yet is how she will face her dad. He loves her, has always been her biggest supporter and she knows he won’t be disappointed in her, but he really should be. His little Mackie; ethical, moral Mackie, always fighting the good fight yet here she is, essentially on the verge of exile, feeling only slightly more moral than the war criminals she had thought she was exposing.

One by one, the team is called in to go over their statements with the lawyers and Mac hates that they are being forced to go through this (Maggie is reliving what happened in Africa and Mac can't even begin to think about what that's doing to her), when all they were doing was what she asked of them. It’s after midnight before Mackenzie starts her deposition and gone 2am by the time she emerges from the room, her eyes red, her entire body weary. Will is waiting, sitting on the floor in the hallway, where he has been since she was called in, and she doesn’t know what to say to him; she repeats her apology but he refuses to hear it, once again pulling her against him as he insists they are in this as a team just as they always have been.

The lawyers don’t seem to know for sure what the outcome will be but they do admit it’s likely that the most senior staff will take the hit for Genoa, that Charlie, Will and Mackenzie will be expected to resign. Mac knows in an instant that she will never forgive herself for her part in the downfall of two good, thoroughly decent men who made only one mistake; trusting her.

As October comes to an end, Mackenzie mentally prepares herself for the inevitable fallout. Don asks her if anything will convince her Genoa wasn't her fault and she almost laughs; it's completely her fault, they followed her lead and she led them into disaster, she doesn't know why they can't see that. She'll miss them, her team, loyal to the end, they make her so very proud and they'll be fine; they'll be amazing. 

The more strung out Mackenzie gets, the more Will insists he won't let her take the fall for Genoa, he tells her to quit bugging him about firing her because it's not going to happen. She knows if she bides her time though, he'll give in eventually. She'll wear him down because she's crafty, she'll push him until he has no other option but to realise it's the best possible outcome for everyone.

On a chilly Friday morning, as most of the east coast prepares for a hurricane, she sits in Helena's office and asks how to start making peace with what's about to happen, how to accept that this chapter of her life is over. She needs to get through election night and then she's done, on Wednesday morning it will all be over; she just needs help surviving until then. When Helena asks why she won't stay and face the aftermath of Genoa, why she isn't willing to stand united with her team, Mackenzie loses it. What she's doing _is_ for her team because if she steps away they won't have to face the aftermath at all; Mackenzie will assume blame and everyone else will be fine, just as it should be.

Helena asks if Mac is sure she isn't throwing herself under the bus to prove to Will she's sorry, if trying to accept the blame for Genoa is one final attempt to atone for cheating on him. Mackenzie tells her that's complete bullshit, she's not taking the blame for Genoa out of some twisted sense of honour, she's taking it because she's the EP and she _is_ to blame. Aware that Mac needs to leave (they're gearing up for election night coverage and Mac is determined to go out on a high), Helena has one final question; how does Mackenzie picture her life without Will in it?

It's the one thing Mac hasn't dared to ask herself and as she reaches to tuck her hair behind her ear she is surprised to find tears rolling down her cheeks.

"I can't," she says, quietly. "I can't imagine my life without him in it."


	4. The Same Page

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _On Saturday morning, four days after Will proposes, Mackenzie hands him a coffee and tells him they need to talk._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty, final chapter. It may be a tad soppy, I would apologise but I can't quite bring myself to ;) Thanks to all who commented, it really is very much appreciated! As ever, thanks to [time_converges](http://archiveofourown.org/users/time_converges/pseuds/time_converges) for comma control.

In a little under a week, Mackenzie has been fired, unfired (she doesn’t think unfired is a word but unfired is what it felt like) and pulled from the brink of meltdown. Aside from all of that, and the biggest, most unexpected thing of all, she is engaged. A week ago she was asking Helena how she was going to walk away from Will for good and now she’s wearing his ring, sleeping in his bed, saying yes to spending the rest of her life with him. She’s happy, ridiculously happy, the kind of happy that hits her at unexpected moments and makes her grin like an idiot. Sometimes it hits her when she’s standing beside Will, making her blush, and she is completely unable to stop herself reaching out and touching him, simply because she can.

In bed, she clings to him, presses every inch of herself against him, her body desperate to relearn everything she had forced it to forget. She loves his scent, the taste of him, she bathes in the warmth of the words he whispers softly against her skin when the two of them are curled up together. When he takes her home on election night and they fit together like they were never apart, she wonders how she survived so long without this.

Mackenzie knows this happiness with Will is permanent, she’s not worried about that- she has never known contentment until now- but she also knows it doesn’t mean she is suddenly fixed. It took time to sink as low as she did and it will take time to climb back up again but it makes it easier knowing she has Will by her side. She goes to see Helena, laughing at her stunned expression when she tells her the news and shows her the sparkling proof sitting proudly on her left hand.

On Saturday morning, four days after Will proposes, Mackenzie hands him a coffee and tells him they need to talk. She takes his hand and asks him to please just let her say what she needs to, kissing him softly when his face becomes a sudden study in panic, telling him she loves him, she wants to marry him, it’s all she’s ever wanted, but that there are some things he should know. Once she starts, the words tumble out of her; she was stabbed, yes it was pretty bad, she was sent home, she probably has PTSD, she has nightmares sometimes, she cries more than she ever used to, she’s in therapy, she self-medicates but she’s working on that, she’s sorry for not telling him.

Will lets her talk, saying nothing, his eyes never leaving hers as he squeezes her hand. Eventually running out of steam, Mac stops and shakes her head slightly, smiling nervously as he pulls her to him, letting out a long, ragged breath. Her head comes to rest on his shoulder and she turns to kiss his neck softly, overtaken by a sudden need to feel his warm skin under her lips, his pulse strong, its steady rhythm offering comfort. They sit in silence until she feels his hand run through her hair and she tilts her face up to his, raising her eyebrows waiting for him to say whatever he has in response to everything she just told him. He tells her she has nothing to be sorry for, that what she's been through was in part his fault, and he promises they'll be ok, they're in this together now and he'll do whatever she needs to make things better. At that, she surprises herself by telling him she'd like them to go to therapy together; he surprises her even more by agreeing without a moment's hesitation.

Mackenzie calls Helena and asks how she would feel about seeing her and Will together, making an appointment for the following week when Helena says she'd be more than happy to. The night before the appointment Will senses Mac's nervousness and takes her for dinner after the show, telling her he won't be offended if she would rather see Helena alone, he can go with her and wait for her outside, he wants to do whatever makes her comfortable, whatever will help. God, she loves him.

They arrive early at Helena's office and Mac is fine, it's Will who is pacing and messing with his hair while they wait. She lets him suffer for a few minutes before standing up and taking his hand, pulling him down to sit beside her and leaning against him, whispering that it will be fine.

The appointment goes well, Helena quickly establishing that Mackenzie and Will have talked about what she's gone through, about the nightmares, the anxiety; he admits he had worried that she was self-medicating but had no idea how to approach her or if it was even his place to. Helena asks Mac how she feels now that her job is safe and she has Will fully in her life again and Mac tells her she feels like she's been pulled up from the edge of a cliff. When she asks Will how he's feeling, he says he is still angry with himself for refusing to see far enough past his own pain to realise Mackenzie was hurting just as much, if not more. Helena talks about how they need to accept that they have hurt each other, that they each have a tendency to hold onto guilt, and when she asks if what they have together is worth working at, they both answer yes at exactly the same time. Good, Helena tells them, they're on the same page and that's the best start they can hope for.

Through December they see Helena together, Mackenzie sees her alone and Will still sees Jack. Mac jokes one night that they spend practically everything they have on therapy and the next morning finds a Tiffany box on her desk with a note that says 'Not _everything_. I love you- W, xx'. 

By the time Christmas comes, they have settled into a routine. She's completely moved in, her things clutter up his previously sterile apartment, she talks too much when he's watching football and he laughs at her addiction to Cash Cab reruns ("I take enough fucking cabs, Billy, I can't believe it never happened. I would have been so ready."). It's domestic harmony, Will and Mackenzie style and it works perfectly. They still fight, they always will because they're so similar yet so different, but they make up as passionately as they fight, having long since acknowledged they're far better together than they ever were apart.

There are still days when Mackenzie is unexpectedly floored by anxiety, mornings when Will has to coax her out of the bathroom, nights when he can do nothing but hold her as she sobs. She copes better than before though; when she's in need of support now, she turns to Will where a few months earlier she would seek comfort in alcohol and end up feeling worse than ever. They are slowly learning to stop apologising for past mistakes, to accept that they can't change what has gone but they can be grateful for what they have now. When they were together the first time, thinking about the future sent Mac into a panic, and when they were apart she couldn't bear to think about the future at all. They move into a new year and when she tells Will over breakfast one morning that she would like to set a wedding date, she realises the future no longer scares her. He tells her it's about damn time and they carry on eating, grinning stupidly at each other across the table.

Things keep getting steadily better as the weeks go by, Mackenzie didn’t think it would be possible to fall more in love with Will than she already was, yet somehow it happens. They start to do the things they used to; they walk in the park, they go out to dinner, to the theatre, they sit and read, her head against his shoulder or his arm around hers. Mac begins to gradually forget that they wasted so much precious time apart, Helena posits the theory that it's because she knows it doesn’t matter anymore; they’re together now, it’s forever and that’s the important thing. Mac thinks she may be right.

Will keeps his appointments with Jack, Mackenzie keeps hers with Helena and they are encouraged to keep talking to each other, which they do more than ever. They talk about the things that matter and the things that don’t, sometimes they don’t talk at all but their silences are comfortable. Mackenzie’s favourite times are the Sunday mornings they spend just lying in bed together, cocooned in each other’s warmth, exchanging occasional kisses but feeling no need for conversation.

Sometime in February, Mackenzie starts to feel stable for the first time in so long that she doesn’t quite know how to deal with it. Anxiety she is used to, anger, despair, loneliness; calm feels like a foreign concept. She tells Helena she's afraid of feeling well again because she fears falling, knowing she would land so much harder if she had allowed herself to become accustomed to stability. Helena raises the subject of reducing her medication and Mac panics, worrying that the pills are the only thing holding her together, even though rationally she knows it’s much more than that. She agrees to at least talk it over with Will and see how it feels to think about it as a positive step rather than one that will set her back.

In March Mackenzie invites Helena to the wedding, unexpected tears escaping as she thanks her for everything and tells her she couldn’t have got where she is now without her help. Helena tells her she’s one of the strongest people she’s ever met and that the hard work was all hers, and when she says she'd be delighted to come to the wedding, Mackenzie cries some more. After her session, she goes to meet Will for brunch and when she sees the sweet smile on his face as she walks towards him, she finds herself crying for the third time that morning and wonders what the hell is wrong with her. She buries herself against his chest and he gives her a minute before stroking her hair and asking quietly if she’s ok. She pulls back to look up at him and smiles yes, she's ok; she’s absolutely ok.

On April 20th 2013, three years to the day since she came back and turned Will McAvoy’s world on its head, Mackenzie McHale becomes his wife in a low-key ceremony on the Upper West Side. His sisters and brother are there, her parents and brother, his therapist, her therapist (she smiles at that) and their entire News Night staff. Charlie stands up as Will’s Best Man, looking as proud as punch, Leona arrives looking like she just stepped right from the pages of Vogue.

Mackenzie makes it through her vows without a single stumble (and an "I do" so enthusiastic that she hears the staff giggling behind her), her eyes filling with tears only when Will's voice cracks on "lawfully wedded wife". He recovers in time to thoroughly obey the instruction to kiss the bride, before they pull apart and stand grinning at each other. Mac loves how much is Will is smiling again, it seemed for so long that he had forgotten how to; she silently vows to make him smile every day for the rest of her life.

Late in the evening, the emotion of the day catches up with her and Mackenzie retreats to a quiet corner, leans against the wall and closes her eyes, breathing slowly in and out, trying to calm her racing heart. After a few minutes Will finds her, coming to stand behind her, his arms around her waist, his chin resting on her head. As they stand watching their team, their _family_ , Mackenzie is overwhelmed by the love she feels for each of them, by how much they have all come to mean to her, and she knows Will feels the same. Turning around in his arms, she leans up to kiss him, her fingers tickling the back of his neck as he pulls her closer to him and whispers that he never stopped loving her and he never will.

Standing in the arms of her husband and surrounded by the people she loves, Mackenzie feels herself relax as she realises that this is it, this is what she was looking for: she is home at last.


End file.
